


The Keys, Keys To My Heart You Hold

by Laliandra



Series: Love Songs of the Criminally Unaware [2]
Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Con Artists, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laliandra/pseuds/Laliandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one is for the stellar antistar-e who wanted a future snippet from <a href="http://laliandra.livejournal.com/40418.html">Another Vision of Us</a>, and said "I am all for irredeemable fluff. I will form whole societies as appreciative advocates for irredeemable fluff. They will be fabulous societies and our Christmas parties will be the best, that is how much I support irredeemable fluff." SO THAT IS WHAT SHE IS GETTING. The title is from The City by Patrick Wolf which I love beyond the telling of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Keys, Keys To My Heart You Hold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antistar_e (kaikamahine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/gifts).



Eduardo is pacing the lobby, harried and handsome in his suit. He smiles at Mark and tilts his cell away from his mouth to say that, “Dustin claims that the rings are only misplaced, he’s sure he knows where and, hang on, no it’s not Chris. I’m not an idiot, Dustin, it’s just Mark.” He rolls his eyes at the phone and by proxy, Dustin. Mark raises his eyebrows at the ‘just’.

Eduardo pauses, laughs, and says, “Yeah, he’s wearing the suit. He had the fear of Chris put into him, probably. He looks, no he looks good.” Eduardo’s tone shifts to match his grin, sly and speculative. “Like, really good. Edible, even.”

Mark can hear the squawk that comes out of Eduardo’s cell. “He hung up on you, huh,” he says with a smile. He enjoys it when Wardo gets his own way more than he’s comfortable with, really. More than is good for him, definitely, but somehow he can’t seem to want to stop. “He hung up on me,” Eduardo confirms in a satisfied tone, and Mark steps in to take the kiss that’s waiting for him.

Eduardo says, “You really do look good, though.” He fiddles with Mark’s collar, even though Mark is one hundred percent certain that it’s _fine_.

“Stop worrying,” Mark orders. One day that will actually work on Wardo.

Eduardo sighs, moves his attentions to Mark’s lapels. “It’s Chris’s wedding day. I want everything to be perfect, you know?”

“Exactly, it’s _Chris’s_ wedding day, everything is going to be alright,” Mark says. Chris has organised everything with his usual borderline-terrifying efficiency and anyway, Mark remembers Chris’s face bright with happiness, the way his voice shook, wondrous and overcome, as he’d said, “He said yes.”

It’s painfully obvious that today is already perfect as far as Chris is concerned.

“Weddings are really stressful,” Eduardo says, in the surprised tone of someone who has a small family who live thousands of miles away. This is seriously not news to Mark.

“Well, this should be the last one that you’re subjected to for a while. It’s not like any of the rest of us are going to get married anytime soon,” Mark points out. If anything this only seems to make Eduardo look more concerned, his mouth going pinched and his hand stopping halfway through yet another smooth down Mark’s right lapel. “Oh,” he says quietly.

Mark says, “It’s far too dangerous. I mean, Chris is almost completely legitimate now, plus he’s marrying out of the game which helps, and I still don’t want to think about the favours that he must be calling in to pull this off.” All of which he also thought would be painfully obvious, but apparently not.

Eduardo says, “Oh,” again, but this time in his casing voice, like he’s trying to figure Mark out, find pressure points and lines of sight.

It’s something Mark should be used to, the way Eduardo sometimes looks at him like there’s something inside worth stealing for his own. He says, “It’s just too dangerous. Too many red flags, legal and otherwise. Dustin and Amy would have the same problems. I looked into it, and I think we could probably make it work with fake identities but what would be the point in that?”

Mark stops in exasperation and takes Eduardo’s hand - before he totally undoes all Mark’s hard work on that tie knot - curls his fingers round Eduardo’s wrist. The wrist thing is a Thing that doesn’t look like it will ever go away. He continues, “We’ve got IDs if we need to be each other’s medical proxy and it’s not like we pay taxes or have property or wills or...”

“So there’s no point...” Eduardo starts, and then laughs, hollowly. “You’re saying the only reason to get married would be to _get married_.”

Mark says, “Yes, exactly, this isn’t exactly a hard concept to grasp, Wardo, I know we didn’t get a lot of sleep last night but there’s no reason for you to be looking like that.” He waves at Eduardo’s face, eyes, mouth, general aura of confusion.

“I’m a bit...You’ve been researching? Into us?”

“Who else were you thinking about marrying?” Mark asks, only half joking.

He’s... better at this, now, despite what Chris says. It’s taken two years but he can accept, most days, that Eduardo isn’t just going to leave and never come back (to their bed, to the country, to _Mark_ ). He pretty much just keeps tabs on Eduardo these days because for all the sensible noises he makes, Wardo still ends up stuck on the roof of the Musée D’Orsay after a _bet_. Mark is basically obligated to monitor him.

Eduardo says, “No one else, _god_ ,” pleasingly pink and indignant.

“Good,” Mark says. Eduardo stares at him for a beat and then asks, “And, so, wait, you... You’ve really thought about marrying me?”

“Again, who else,” Mark says, with an eyeroll for good measure. And then, for no apparent reason he adds, “Yes. Yeah. You.”

It’s not something that he thinks about all the time or anything. Certainly not as much as he thinks about Eduardo in a nice suit in a more general way. But they keep passing bills, and every time they’re in New York Mark thinks about that temple his Mom mentions pointedly every time she calls. He doesn’t want something like Chris, all this pointless rigmarole, but there’s something viscerally satisfying about the thought of standing with Eduardo in front of their friends and before God to say _this one is mine, and he is sacred to me_.

But.

“We can’t, thought. Unless you want to give it up,” Mark says, and Eduardo says, “No!” before he’s even finished speaking. Because that’s who they are. It makes Eduardo very easy to love, although, inconveniently, Mark would even if it was impossible. Even when.

Eduardo says, “No,” again, soft and with a softer press of his fingers to the underside to Mark’s wrist. “So. We can’t. But.”

“It’s not like it really matters,” Mark says. “I mean, whatever. You’re still... You’re _it_ for me, Wardo.”

He does’t mean it as like, some great statement or gesture but Eduardo looks... amazing, giddy happy, a huge stupid unstoppable smile all over his stupid undeniable face.

Mark tries to snap, “What?” but just as he does Eduardo says, “Mark,” and he can’t even pretend to be anything other than happy, how could he be, with Eduardo smiling at him like that. Mark is fucking clueless about how to deal with this, with how much he just wants to _keep_ him.

“You aren’t going to break up with me now, are you? Because that would be really awkward,” Mark says. “I think Chris might kill you and I have the car keys and besides, I really do know where the bodies are buried.”

Eduardo takes Mark’s other hand, because he _does_ mean things as grand gestures, and says, “Mark Zuckerberg, I couldn’t stop loving you even when I couldn’t stand you.” Mark is a bit concerned that Eduardo is going to do something like go down on one knee, here in this lobby with its ugly patterned carpet and fake greenery and aggressively cheerful porters. There’s not even anything Mark could do about it because Eduardo is very difficult to physically incapacitate and probably has a knife somewhere on his person. But then Eduardo breaks out of his earnest stare and into a grin that is all sharp tease. “So I think you’re stuck with me, now,” he laughs.

And, oh fuck, Mark probably has a really dumb look on his face, probably worse than Wardo’s almost terrifying glee, and Marilyn has probably got into the security feed and is recording the whole thing, and Eduardo has basically agreed to spend his life with Mark and...

“You really aren’t equipped for this at all, are you?” Eduardo marvels, but he is still smiling at Mark, still holding both of his hands. Eduardo is pretty good at Mark, sometimes, can go from A to H with him without having to be walked through the letters in between. Mark might not have to lose that again.

Mark considers, well, he considers a lot of things but then he realises that he can just reel Eduardo in, keeping one hand locked tight in his. Mark doesn’t know why this didn’t occur to him first, he works best with something under his fingertips, with Eduardo pulled close and kept there. “Good,” he says, which is repetitive and not all that clever. But really it’s just something to fill that heartbeat before he can open Eduardo’s mouth up with his own, find the slick warmth of it, close his eyes and hear his own heartbeat and the soft noises that Eduardo makes, achingly familiar.

“I have a horrible feeling that you were going to be late to my wedding because of elevator sex,” Chris says from _very close by_. Mark turns his head to see Chris leaning on a pillar about a foot away. “Were it not for my very timely intervention.”

“Fuck off, Chris,” Eduardo says cheerfully, hooking a finger through one of Mark’s belt loops, and Mark hadn’t even been considering going back for sex, definitely not the elevator, but now he’s really not sure he would be able to make it back to their room. It’s the worst kind of irony, shit.

Chris adjusts his buttonhole and stares in a really pointed way. Eduardo cracks first, obviously. “Fine, fine,” he sighs. “We’re ready.”

“This is so far from being your biggest problem,” Mark tells Chris. He keeps Eduardo’s hand as he steps back, anyway.

Chris says, “Oh my god, what?” and Eduardo hits Mark in the arm and Mark just laughs, because apparently it’s a perfect day for him, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment here or at the [LJ Post](http://laliandra.livejournal.com/44021.html)


End file.
